UPDATED: When Pro-Lifers Turn Anti-Abortion

UPDATE

Turns out that this is one angry fellow. Oh, and threatening continued violence in the name of a "Pro-Life" cause stopped being humorously ironic the second the first bomb was placed outside an abortion clinic. Sickening.

ORIGINAL POST
I figured this topic had already been covered thoroughly, until Charles posted this on LGF:

A so-called “Christian” blogger compares suspected murderer Scott Roeder to Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the man who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler — and suggests that murder might be an appropriate way to deal with doctors who perform abortions: The ethics of murder.

Bonhoeffer's actions are interesting from both a philosophical and ethical perspective, but I do not wish to discuss this now. Rather, I intend to show how Bonhoeffer's actions were materially different from those of Scott Roeder, and how that difference is relevent to the ethical discussion of Roeder's actions.

Let us contrast the differences between Bonhoeffer's and Roeder's respective nemesises. Hitler was an autocrat who controlled even the minutest of details within his government; Dr. Tiller was a front-line clinician whose activities were restricted by the government to whom he was subject. Clearly, killing Hitler would have had great impact in Germany, as it would have eliminated a key decision maker controlling public policy and directing public practice. Hitler ordered the murder of Jews, invalids, homosexuals, and a host of other groups he did not care for. While it is true that Dr. Tiller was responsible for the performing of abortions (murders, if you will), his actions and culpability for his actions are better likened to that of a staff officer of the SS. Certainly not a reputable figure, but not someone in a position to effect changes in policy.

We hold Hitler responsible for the murder of some six million, yet I have never once seen any evidence that shows that Hitler, himself, pulled the trigger of a gun or turned the valve leading to a gas chamber. Why? Hitler was responsible for the policies that led to the murders, hence we hold him accountable for the entirety of the slaughter. Bonhoeffer, it could be argued, may have had a reasonable expectation that killing Hitler would end the horrors of the concentration camps. Though unlikely, there was a fleeting chance that it could have occurred. Not so with Dr. Tiller. His murder will likely have no effect on the number of abortions performed in the United States or around the world, a fact of which Roeder was most certainly aware.

If anyone should want to compare Roeder in favorable terms to those throughout history who sought to right injustices through violence, let them compare him to those he his comparable to: The killer of an SS guard. We may find upon such comparison that there is no comparison, but speaking of Roeder next to Bonhoeffer distorts historical significance. It is my guess that Roeder will not be looked upon favorably by history, if we bother to remember him at all.

Where the comparison to Bonhoeffer becomes material is in their (publicly-avowed) personal beliefs: Bonhoeffer had lived as an ardent pacifist before becoming entangled in the plot to kill Hitler. Roeder, as has been mentioned unceasingly since Dr. Tiller's murder--even before anyone knew Roeder's name or the veracity of the claim, believed abortion to be murder. The turning of a pacifist into a conspirator to murder would seem on par with a Pro-Lifer committing murder. Here, I believe, it is worth returning to the scale and scope of the intended targets. Bonhoeffer had reason to believe that his actions would effect wholesale change in Germany--it could even be argued that his actions were not out of a hatred of Hitler but a love of Germany. Roeder could not have believed that killing Dr. Tiller would have effected wholesale change in the abortion industry in America; his actions, it appears, were done out of a hatred for Dr. Tiller (and others like him) specifically, and not a love of life.

And I will conclude with this, my title: When pro-lifers turn anti-abortion, they have lost the plot. If the crusade is about upholding the sanctity of life, then the crusaders must themselves uphold the sanctity of life in their words and their deeds. Roeder and his intellectual ilk must be castigated from the pro-life movement, lest the movement cease to have any meaning. Pro-lifers must categorically condemn Roeder's actions. There can be no room for budging, no "we think he did wrong but we're glad Tiller's dead." We must remember that we are in America, not Nazi Germany, and we have the liberty and capacity to effect wholesale changes in American law without violence. Pro-lifers, I implore you: Do not become anti-abortionists.